BRIGHT BULB State spending review. Comptroller Peter Franchot said he’s going to send a letter to Gov. Martin O’Malley calling for a “top-to-bottom” state spending review. O’Malley should have no problem with this proposal because he’s all about open government and his StateStat program, right? Right.
OUTRAGE: Bad water
- WHO: Baltimore City and the company managing its Townes at the Terraces apartment complex in East Baltimore.
- WHAT: Charging residents for up to four years’ worth of water bills.
- WHY IT’S A BAD IDEA: The management company forced residents to sign addenda to their leases requiring them to pay for water use, according to one resident who said she then received a bill from the company, who said that if she did not pay she would be evicted. Her bill was $2,016, which she has to pay on a $20,000-a-year income that supports a family of four. How can the city, in good conscience, charge residents for four years’ worth of water they had no idea they would have to pay for?
- WHY THEY ARE DOING IT: With the economy slumping, tax revenues dropping and government overspending, complex managers just decided to push the costly oversight onto poor residents, figuring they wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back.
- Where to vent: www.baltimorehousing.org
Quote of the day
“Everything we do is about taking student success a step higher. … We have to provide every parent and every student with a setting that they want, that they would choose not out of necessity but out of choice. Every parent should feel right about the school their child attends.”
– Andres Alonso, Baltimore City Schools chief executive officer, discussing plans to open nine new transformation schools
